On a summer night, police recover the body of a young woman from an abandoned pleasure boat drifting around the Stockholm archipelago. Her lungs are filled with brackish water, and the forensics team is sure that she drowned. Why, then, is the pleasure boat still afloat, and why are there no traces of water on her clothes or body?.... After spellbinding audiences in The Hypnotist, Detective Inspector Joona Linna is back in The Nightmare, an internationally best-selling Swedish thriller published to critical acclaim in dozens of countries.

The Fire Witness: A Novel

Flora Hansen calls herself a medium and makes a living by pretending to commune with the dead. But after a gruesome murder at a rural home for wayward girls, Hansen begins to suffer visions that are all too real. She calls the police claiming to have seen a ghost, but only one detective puts aside his skepticism long enough to listen: Joona Linna. Linna has spent more time at the scene of the crime than any other detective would.

The Hypnotist

Tumba, Sweden. A triple homicide—all the victims from the same family—captivates Detective Inspector Joona Linna. The killer is at large, and it appears that the elder sister of the family escaped the carnage; it seems only a matter of time until she, too, is murdered. But where can Linna begin? The only surviving witness is the boy whose mother, father, and little sister were killed before his eyes. He has suffered more than 100 knife wounds and lapsed into a state of shock. He’s in no condition to be questioned....

Closed for Winter

The summer cottages are closed, and peace is settling over the coast of Vestfold, but the autumn fog conceals evil deeds. Ove Bakkerud’s cottage is ransacked by burglars, and next door he discovers the body of a man who has been beaten to death. Police Inspector William Wisting is uneasy; the desperation he sees in this latest murder is troubling. Meanwhile dead birds are dropping from the sky.

The Purity of Vengeance: A Department Q Novel

International superstar Jussi Adler-Olsen, with more than fourteen million copies of his books sold worldwide, returns with the fourth book in his New York Times best-selling Department Q series, about a perplexing cold case with sinister modern-day consequences. In 1987, Nete Hermansen plans revenge on those who abused her in her youth, including Curt Wad, a charismatic surgeon who was part of a movement to sterilize wayward girls in 1950s Denmark.

The Marco Effect: Department Q, Book 5

All fifteen-year-old Marco Jameson wants is to become a Danish citizen and go to school like a normal teenager. But his uncle Zola rules his former gypsy clan with an iron fist. Revered as a god and feared as a devil, Zola forces the children of the clan to beg and steal for his personal gain. When Marco discovers a dead body - proving the true extent of Zola's criminal activities - he goes on the run. But his family members aren't the only ones who'll go to any lengths to keep Marco silent - forever.

The Second Deadly Sin

After successfully tracking down and killing a rogue bear in the wilderness of northern Sweden, a group of hunters is shaken by a grisly discovery when they dress the bear carcass: human remains in the stomach. Far away in the remote village of Kurravaara, an elderly woman is found murdered with frenzied brutality, crude abuse scrawled above her bloodied bed. Her young grandson, known to live with her, is nowhere to be found.

The Son: A Novel

Sonny Lofthus is a strangely charismatic and complacent young man. Sonny’s been in prison for a dozen years, nearly half his life. The inmates who seek out his uncanny abilities to soothe leave his cell feeling absolved. They don’t know or care that Sonny has a serious heroin habit - or where or how he gets his uninterrupted supply of the drug. Or that he’s serving time for other peoples’ crimes. Sonny took the first steps toward addiction when his father took his own life rather than face exposure as a corrupt cop. Now Sonny is the seemingly malleable center of a whole infrastructure of corruption....

The Alphabet House

British pilots James Teasdale and Bryan Young have been chosen to conduct a special photo-reconnaissance mission near Dresden, Germany. Intelligence believes the Nazis are building new factories that could turn the tide of the war. When their plane is shot down, James and Bryan know they will be executed if captured. With an enemy patrol in pursuit, they manage to jump aboard a train reserved for senior SS soldiers wounded on the eastern front.

The Hypnotist

You need clues. You need time. You need a motive. You won’t have any of them.When a whole family is murdered in Stockholm, Detective Inspector Joona Linna knows there is only one person who can help find the perpetrator. Erik Maria Bark, retired hypnotist, is called in to work with Josef Ek, a fifteen-year-old boy who witnessed the brutal murder of his family.Following a series of accusations by his patients, Erik is reluctant to return to his craft but makes an exception for Joseph Ek

Until Thy Wrath Be Past: A Rebecka Martinsson Investigation

In Until Thy Wrath Be Past, the body of a young woman surfaces in the River Torne, in the far north of Sweden. Meanwhile, Rebecka Martinsson is working as a prosecutor in nearby Kiruna. Her sleep has been disturbed by haunting visions of a shadowy, accusing figure. Could the body be connected to the ghostly young woman in her dreams?

A Conspiracy of Faith: Department Q, Book 3

Detective Carl Morck has received a bottle that holds an old and decayed message written in blood. It's a cry for help from two young brothers, tied and bound in a boathouse by the sea. After floating in the ocean for years before turning up, the bottle sat forgotten, unopened, on a police department windowsill, before the seal was cracked and the gruesome message, written in Danish, was analyzed. Could it be real? Who are these boys, and why weren't they reported missing? Could they possibly still be alive?

Buried: Department Q, Book 5

Penguin presents the unabridged, downloadable audiobook edition of Buried, the fifth installment of the Department Q series by Jussi Adler-Olsen, read by Steven Pacey. More than three years ago, a civil servant vanished after returning from a work trip to Africa. Though he is missing and presumed dead, the man's family still want answers. It is one of the many unsolved crimes left for Department Q, Denmark's cold-case unit headed up by Detective Carl Morck.

Eva's Eye: Inspector Sejer Mystery, Book 1

Eva Magnus and her daughter are out walking by the river when a man's body floats to the water's surface. Eva goes to call the police, but when she reaches the phone, she dials another number altogether.

Bad Wolf: Bodenstein & Kirchhoff, Book 2

On a hot June day the body of a 16-year-old girl washes up on a river bank outside of Frankfurt. She has been brutally murdered, but no one comes forward with any information as to her identity. Even weeks later, the local police have not been able to identify her. Then a new case comes in: a popular television reporter is attacked, raped, and locked in the trunk of her own car. She survives - barely - and is able to supply certain hints to the police having to do with her recent investigations into a child welfare organization and the potential uncovering of a child pornography ring with members from the highest echelon of society.

Police: A Harry Hole Novel, Book 10

The police urgently need Harry Hole…. A killer is stalking Oslo's streets. Police officers are being slain at the scenes of crimes they once investigated but failed to solve. The murders are brutal, the media reaction hysterical. But this time, Harry can't help.... For years, detective Harry Hole has been at the center of every major criminal investigation in Oslo. His dedication to his job and his brilliant insights have saved the lives of countless people. But now, with those he loves most facing terrible danger, Harry is not in a position to protect anyone. Least of all himself...

Charles Atkinson says:"Simply the Best Detective Series In any Language"

The Disappeared

A young woman is found carved up and buried in a forest glade in a Stockholm suburb. She is identified as Rebecca Trolle, a student who went missing two years earlier. While Fredrika Bergman and her team try to find out why Rebecca met such a violent demise, more bodies are found in the same area.

The Absent One

In The Keeper of Lost Causes, Jussi Adler-Olsen introduced Detective Carl Mørck, a deeply flawed, brilliant detective newly assigned to run Department Q, the home of Copenhagen’s coldest cases. The result wasn’t what Mørck - or readers - expected, but by the opening of Adler-Olsen’s shocking, fast-paced follow-up, Mørck is satisfied with the notion of picking up long-cold leads. So he’s naturally intrigued when a closed case lands on his desk: A brother and sister were brutally murdered two decades earlier....

Dreamless

A promising young singer is found dead in a clearing in a forest, gruesomely murdered - her larynx cut out and an antique music box placed carefully atop her body, playing a mysterious lullaby that sounds familiar but that no one can quite place. Chief Inspector Odd Singsaker, of the Trondheim Police Department, still recovering from brain surgery, is called in to investigate.

Unwanted

In the middle of a rainy Swedish summer, a little girl is abducted from a crowded train. Her distraught mother was left behind at the previous station in what seemed to be a coincidence. The train crew was alerted and kept a watchful eye on the sleeping child. But when the train pulled into Stockholm Central Station, the little girl had vanished. Inspector Alex Recht, assisted by the investigative analyst Fredrika Bergman, are assigned to what at first appears to be a classic custody fight. But then the child is found dead....

The Doll Maker

Detectives Byrne and Balzano return to the streets of Philadelphia to put an end to a macabre succession of murdered children. A quiet Philadelphia suburb. A woman cycles past a train depot with her young daughter. There she finds a murdered girl posed on a newly painted bench. Beside her is a formal invitation to a tea dance in a week's time.

The Keeper of Lost Causes: Department Q, Book 1

Jussi Adler-Olsen is Denmark's premier crime writer. His books routinely top the bestseller lists in northern Europe, and he's won just about every Nordic crime-writing award, including the prestigious Glass Key Award-also won by Henning Mankell, Stieg Larsson, and Jo Nesbo. Now, Dutton is thrilled to introduce him to America.

The Gingerbread House

Ingrid Olsson returns home from a Stockholm hospital to discover a man in her kitchen. She's never seen the intruder before. But he's no threat - he's dead. Criminal Investigator Conny Sjoberg takes the call, abandoning his wife Asa and their five children for the night. His team identify the body as that of a middle-aged family man. But why was he there? And who bludgeoned him to death? Lacking suspect and motive, Sjoberg's team struggle until they link the case to another - apparently random - killing. And discover they face a serial killer on a terrible vendetta....

To the Top of the Mountain

After the disastrous end to their last case, the Intercrime team – a specialist unit created to investigate violent, international crime – has been disbanded, their leader forced into early retirement.The six officers have been scattered throughout the country.

Publisher's Summary

Audie Award Nominee, Mystery, 2013

Lars Kepler returns with a piercing, best-selling sequel to The Hypnotist.

After spellbinding audiences in The Hypnotist, Detective Inspector Joona Linna is back in The Nightmare, an internationally best-selling Swedish thriller published to critical acclaim in dozens of countries. As the Swedish newspaper Arbetarbladet put it, "The reader is ready to sell his own soul for the opportunity to read this book without interruption, in one sitting."

On a summer night, police recover the body of a young woman from an abandoned pleasure boat drifting around the Stockholm archipelago. Her lungs are filled with brackish water, and the forensics team is sure that she drowned. Why, then, is the pleasure boat still afloat, and why are there no traces of water on her clothes or body?

The next day, a man turns up dead in his state apartment in Stockholm, hanging from a lamp hook. All signs point to suicide, but the room has a high ceiling, and there's not a single piece of furniture around—nothing to climb on. Joona Linna begins to piece together the two mysteries, but the logistics are a mere prelude to a dizzying and dangerous course of events.

At its core, the most frightening aspect of The Nightmare isn’t its gruesome crimes—it’s the dark psychology of its characters, who show us how blind we are to our own motives.

I learned after finishing this book that the author listed is actually a pen name for a pair of authors that write together. I found that interesting, because while 90% of the book was a well written crime mystery that I enjoyed very much, the other 10% was comprised of short sections and sub-plots that seemed to come completely from left field. One event was so bizarre I had to wonder if it had been written as an inside joke that inadvertently made it into the final version.

While most of the issues weren’t that dramatic, there seemed to be a dissident chord running throughout the plot, right up to the end. After learning about the dual authors, I wondered if that fact might explain the dueling voices in the story.

Except for that issue, I really enjoyed this book. You just have to be ready to overlook a few scenes that don’t fit the rest of the narrative. If you can do that, you’ll be rewarded with some interesting characters and a solid mystery.

I don't understand the rave reviews "Lars Kepler" gets (off Audible). Like several of the other reviewers, I found this book and The Hypnotist as well to be awkwardly written and creepy, not in a good way. I hate mysteries told in the present tense, as if Joona Linna is always and forever engaged in each particular moment of the action, but that's a prejudice of mine others might not have. However, the writing is just poor, the characters are flat, the is no sense of place, no texture to the novel. The events are so contrived that it's just impossible to engage with the story. I finished them both, but it was a chore rather than a pleasure.

The reviewer who said this was a "Tale of Two Authors" had it right. I would add one word to that review: "Tale of Two LAZY Authors."

It's like one of them was charged with Plot A (and c, and d) and the other one with Plot B (and e and f) -- and then they got together on a weekend to try to figure out how all the pieces would come together in one novel. Aside from the out-of-left-field incident (I am pretty sure I know which one the reviewer is referring to) that the "Tale of Two Authors" reviewer is talking about, there is a HUGE coincidence where a character from story-line A happens to have this long-abandoned talent (due to tragic circumstances which you are told about in sub-plot e) that just happens to solve a key puzzle piece. Strangely enough, he is ALSO in a position to take action on the matter! The funny thing is that the detectives keep reiterating how they don't believe in coincidences. Well, the authors certainly hope that YOU do!

The actual "writing" itself isn't bad, but the novel gets worse and worse. There is actually one police briefing where you are told EVERYTHING that the police has uncovered up to that point (but that you know ALREADY, because you've been reading the stupid novel!). Was that for us or for the other half of Lars Keplar? (So that she/he would not have to endure the novel up to that point -- like you just had to do.)

Also, if you are one of those mystery fans who likes to "figure things out" along with the detectives, forget it. There is no way you could do that in this novel. MAJOR "clues" are just dumped on you after the fact. (Here you were, trying to figure out why X was killed when, 50 pages later, the reason comes out of nowhere...There were not even hints!)

I gave the story two stars because I DID finish it (I reserve 1-star reviews for the ones where I cannot even manage that). I think that was in a large part due to the reader.He was great, making you almost feel like you were listening to a foreign language.

I am a huge fan of Scandinavian mysteries -- and even liked The Hypnotist (did not love it) -- but I will scratch this pair off my list unless the next book garners stellar reviews.

Where does The Nightmare rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

This is another fast and furiously paced thriller with multiple, unexpected twists and turns and a little bit of everything thrown in for good measure. This may not be the best thriller I have ever read but it sure was fun reading it. Like chocolate and James Bond, a guilty pleasure.

Have you listened to any of Mark Bramhall’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

Yes, I listened to Bramhall narrate another work by the same author. He was perfect on both.

Any additional comments?

This is the perfect book if you want quick, fast entertainment that does not require or can stand close examination; there is a handsome, brooding, super smart hero-detective with an equally outstanding female partner, international intrigue, paid assassins, blackmail, etc. I really wanted to finish this in one sitting and had a great time listening.

Have you listened to any of Mark Bramhall’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

This is the second Kepler book I have listened to and Mark Bramhall is one of my favorite narrators now. He is a great storyteller and shifts effortlessly from giving us the voice of the italian mobster, to an adolescent swedish girl of limited capacity to the main character of Joona Lina who has a rich and gravelly voice. Wonderful narrative technique and compelling storytelling.

Any additional comments?

It is very interesting to have the crime story set in Sweden as a wonderful change of pace from American crime fiction.

Another great story by Lars Kepler, a pen name. The authors are a man and a woman. Nightmare is truly what its name implies. A wonderful boat trip takes a very wrong turn and will have you on the edge of your seat. Penelope is one hell of a woman, in my opinion and you'll see that as the story progresses. Joona Linna, an investigator, is the main character of the book and has an amazing aptitude for solving cases. Yes, he has secrets of his own too. If you enjoyed this book, try "The Fire Witness", another Lars Kepler novel.

Where does The Nightmare rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

it is right up there in the top few.

What was one of the most memorable moments of The Nightmare?

it's more an overall thing. keplar builds characters slowly and realistically, weaves in lots of careful detail, keeps the action going, keeps you guessing and anxious to know what comes next. the narrator is terrific!!! he doesn't sound silly when he shifts his voice to represent a woman or child, is expressive and dynamic, but never overwhelming. he becomes part of the story just perfectly.

Which character – as performed by Mark Bramhall – was your favorite?

They're all done very well, but I like the main character, Joona Linna, best. He gives the character a certain gravitas with his performance.

If you could rename The Nightmare, what would you call it?

I wouldn't.

Any additional comments?

Get this book. You won't regret it. I started on these Nordic detective books through The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. I have listened to more different authors than I can easily rattle off. This book is the best of the bunch - better than Larsson's series.

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